Safe Birth Conditions

This is the 2007 draft on birth conditions. You will get the newest version here.

Pregnancy and childbirth need safe conditions for reproductive health, for the well-being of mother and child. This includes access to health services and methods of family planning.

Affected people and foundations of life: 43% of deliveries in countries of the South are taking place without assistance by traditional or medically skilled attendants (UN [United Nations] 2007, 16). Because of that every complication can become a danger for life. Furthermore, many pregnant women are undernourished. Currently 300 million women are suffering from long-term or short-term illness brought about by pregnancy or childbirth – nearly one of ten (WHO [World Health Organization] 2005, 10).

Deaths: About 3 million annually.
Each year 2.5 million babies die as a result of inadequate conditions during pregnancy or care during birth. 529 000 mothers die during the time frame of childbirth. 68 000 of these deaths are due to unsafe abortions. In addition to this total of 3 million death cases, there are at least 3.3 million stillborns. (WHO 2004, 120; WHO 2005, xiv [roman 14].) This occurs predominantly in less developed countries. But also in some industrialized countries there is an avoidably high rate of child mortality, due to the lack of information and health services, or the lack of laying claim to the use thereof.

Loss of healthy life-years:

• perinatal conditions (children): 97.3 million healthy life-years (DALYs [Disability-adjusted life years]) annually
• maternal conditions: 33.6 million DALYs annually (WHO 2004, 126)

Targets/goals:

• to reduce the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 by two thirds from 1990 to 2015
• to reduce the maternal mortality rate by three quarters from 1990 to 2015 (Millennium Declaration: UN 2000, § 19.3).
• to achieve universal access to reproductive health and family planning by 2015 (UN 2006a, 6).

Trend: + Thanks to efforts already made, child mortality in less developed countries has been reduced from 106 to 83 per 1 000 live births, and the portion of deliveries assisted by skilled attendants has been increased from 43% to 57% since 1990. But maternal mortality continues. (UN 2007, 14, 16.)

Measures: The 75 countries that account for most of child mortality will need US$ (United States dollar) 52.4 billion additionally for comprehensive measures (WHO 2005, xvii [roman 17]). Different countries as well as private foundations have made pledges for more than US$ 1.4 billion for maternal health and related health issues at the first "Women Deliver" conference held in 2007 (WD 2007, 1f. [and following]).
Some 200 million women wish to get access to contraception (UN 2006, 12). Methods of family planning can prevent death cases and diseases caused by unsafe abortions. They also enable especially women to control becoming pregnant and to coordinate a desire for a child with birth conditions and living conditions (or vice versa). In addition to these matters of health and individual self-determination, family planning can help to prevent collectively a population growth beyond the level our planet is able to support. This is a very controversial issue, interlinked with other concerns, like high consumption levels of a global minority (localized predominantly, but not exclusively in industrialized countries), waste of food and other resources, social and religious topics, essential ethical questions, etc. (and so on) Considering this controversial concerns, the declining growth of world population has to be monitored regarding its effects on food supply, poverty eradication, environmental foundations of human life, etc.

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Annotations

For numeric names the short scale is used:
1 billion = one thousand million = 10⁹ = 1 000 000 000

DALYs: Disability-adjusted life years.
One DALY represents the loss of one year of equivalent full health. DALYs are the sum of the years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLL) in the population and the years lost due to disability (YLD) for incident cases of the health condition. (WHO 2004, 95f.)

Sources

• UN 2000 – United Nations, General Assembly: United Nations Millennium Declaration.  
• UN 2006: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006. New York, 2006.   [Published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs DESA – June 2006.]
• UN 2006a: Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization. General Assembly, Official Records, Sixty-first Session, Supplement No. 1 (A/61/1).  
• UN 2007 – United Nations: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007.   [Published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs DESA – June 2007.]
• WD 2007 – Women Deliver Conference: Media summary.   London.
• WHO 2004 – World Health Organization: WHO Report 2004.  
• WHO 2005 – World Health Organization: The World Health Report 2005 – Make every mother and child count.  

Draft (2007)